Who has won the final Man of the Match of the season against Crystal Palace? Find out the results
It was always going to be an emotional time come the end of the game with a large following of Posh fans travelling to Selhurst Park hoping Posh would do enough to keep themselves in the Championship.
Sadly, in the 89th minute, that hope faded when the Eagles took the lead for the first time in the match following a free kick, which both managers said should never have been awarded, which was nodded into the net from Mile Jedinak.
After the disastrous start to the season, Posh had been magnificent in the second half of the season as they finally found their rhythm and fluidity as they clawed themselves out of the bottom three only to find themselves in that final relegation place after conceding that final minute goal in the final League match of the season.
It was a heartbreaking end to the season which will deeply affect everyone concerned at Peterborough United but Darren Ferguson needs to channel that emotion into making Posh into a promotion challenging team for next season. If he needs any inspiration at all, he just needs to follow the lead of his dad, Sir Alex, who took the loss of the Premiership to Manchester City last season to focus everyone on winning the Premiership this season.
In the final match of the season, Posh put up a good display and dominated their hosts although Palace did always look threatening on the attack. It was Posh, through LEE TOMLIN, that took the lead as he burst past three players before beating another and placing his shot out of the reach of the diving Palace keeper.
That goal seemed to deflate Palace until the dying moments of added time in the first half when Gaby Zakuani failed to clear the ball from a corner before taking out a Palace player instead of kicking the ball to safety. Palace easily slotted the ball past a Posh keeper who had failed to save any penalty he had faced this season to make things even at the break.
Posh once again took the lead in the second half through an excellent NATHANIEL MENDEZ-LAING goal. Tricky winger Alex Pritchard played the ball to Mendez-Laing who ran at the defence before cutting inside and hitting a low left-footed shot into the corner of the net.
Jubilent scenes were witnessed as Posh were giving themselves every chance of staying in the Championship for another season. That was until the final ten minutes.
The ageing Kevin Phillips, who is one of the best finishes in the League, was brought on in an attempt to get back into the game and it certainly did the trick. With just seven minutes of the match remaining, the ball fell to PHILLIPS who had all the time in the world to pick a spot and he delivered an excellently placed shot into the corner of the net to tie things up again.
With the game tied at 2-2 and both clubs safe in the knowledge that Palace were in the play-offs and Posh were safe in the Championship, surely the match would peter out into a draw?
Sadly not. With Palace playing the ball around just inside the Posh half, forward Dwight Gayle makes a clean challenge to win the ball but the South Yorkshire based referee somehow deemed it to be a foul. It was nerve-wracking as we were now in the final minute of the game and Palace had a chance to fire the ball into the Posh penalty area and that is exactly what they did. Under pressure from Michael Bostwick, the ball found the head (or shoulder) of MILE JEDINAK before bouncing past a static Bobby Olejnik and into the goal.
It was a devastating blow for Posh and one which brought delight in Yorkshire as Barnsley and Huddersfield decided to stop playing and wait until the referee blew the final whistle as they were now both safe in the knowledge that they would be playing in the Championship again next season as long as their result didn`t change!
Posh can be proud of their effort in this match and throughout the second half of the season, but who, in your opinion, was the Posh man of the match?
The top three players as voted by you in the Man of the Match for the Championship match against Crystal Palace were:
3rd Place: 19% Nathaniel Mendez-Laing
JOINT 1st Place: 29% CRAIG ALCOCK
and : ALEX PRITCHARD
The PLAYER OF THE SEASON Poll for 2012/2013 is up and running on the right hand-side of the page. The result will be announced on Tuesday, 14th May, 2013.
UP THE POSH
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